A friend of mine gave me (2) of these. I am guessing they are for a 4-string tenor classical guitar. They have NO... read that as ZERO markings on them. Can anyone tell me anything about them? I did some research and came up empty, so far. What instrument were they used on? How old do you think they are?
Sorry about the glare in the photo but, there really isn't much to see, as far as I can tell anyway.
I am sure someone out there in CBN is astute enough to help me in this quest.
Thanks for your help. I want to make sure I do them justice, if they are something special.
Kidd
Replies
Oilyfoot;
Ok... There were these 3 guys.... Ahh forget it..... you probably made the riddle up yourself anyway.
Man... it sure was fun to dig into this little issue. Looks like I had a few people interested enough to get involved in helping someone they never even heard of before.... AND THAT, my friend..... is worth its weight in GOLD. Not a lot of us folks around out there these days.... for one reason or another.
To ALL who helped me along my quest... I truly appreciate each and every minute you spent on my little question. And you have made me VERY glad that I joined CBN.
Have fun and keep on CBG'n;
Kidd
Glad to help! I'm a geologist, so my job is figuring out puzzles on something you can't see, from extremely limited data. I've been trained to question everything, including my own assumptions, at least twice. Plus, I know luck and experience are often involved. So I knew someone who had done one of these mods, and made a lucky guess.
This was fun! Got any more mysteries?
WOW.... Oilyfoot;
That's probably the most expensive intake in the automotive world. So, you understand my comparison. HE HE HE
You have done some serious research here. I have been on that Harmony site a couple times in the past, when I was looking for the tenor guitar I mentioned earlier. You betchyah.... there is a ton on info on that site.
Through all of this... You have hit the nail on the head. I really think you've got it. If you look at the pictures I attached to this reply, you will see that yes... in fact the ends do not match.... AND... you'll notice there are file scratches at each of the would-be crafted ends. These were in fact shortened. I looked at those scratches before and wondered why they both had scratches at the same place. It never occurred to me that they may have been shortened. Like I said.... I'm a green horn.
WOW.... I am totally set back here... you should be a CSI agent or something along those lines. Awesome work Oilyfoot!!!! Awesome work!!
I am, by career choice, a Sr. Level Tech Support Engineer with over 25 years in the industry.... I KNOW the Devil's in the details all too well. And Murphy is never far behind him. There's no such thing as too much correct information.
Thank you Oilyfoot... U B dah MAN!!!
Kidd
2OP_Scratch_1.jpg
2OP_Scratch_2.jpg
I hear you about the carb! But look at it this way: if all you have is a DQ and a farm truck, why not make it look kewl?
No rules, right?
Anyhoo, I stayed up last night going through every single link on that Harmony website, to see if any of the instruments had tuners identical to yours (I sometimes refuse to let things go, especially if there's detail involved. They say that's where both God and the devil are involved ;-) ). All I can tell you is 1) I learned an awful lot about the history of Harmony guitars, so much so that I have a renewed attack of GAS (Guitar Acquisition Syndrome), and 2) your tuners had to have been made by the same supplier as supplied Harmony with parts in the very late 50's to very early 60's.
The reasons I believe this are 1) the inclined stamped decorative ridges on the tuner plate, 2) the outline of the tuner plate, especially at the ends, which have a sort of diagonal cut to them, 3) the tuner buttons shape and size, 4) the direction of the worm gearing. These are all identical on your tuners and the 3-on-a-plate tuners on the Harmony / Stella acoustics from that period, as far as I could tell from their and your pics.
One other thought I had was that the ends of your tuner plate outline, at least in your close up pic, do not appear to be identical. One end has the "typical" diagonal cut, but the other does not appear to. Is this true? If so, then you may want to look very closely with a magnifying glass at the "different" end for evidence of tool marks. I remember an acquaintance of mine who used to work at Rockin' Robin Guitar Shop in Houston, Texas during the late 70's, who repaired guitars. He would occasionally cut off a tuner from a 3-on-a-plate set if he needed a single tuner for a cheap quickie repair. Maybe yours were originally 3-on-a-plate tuners that had been "modified" Dunno, just something to consider.
Probably waaaayyy more detail than you wanted! Did I mention some people think I have OCD?
hey there Oilyfoot;
The pieces are starting to fall together now, with the help of people like you. Thanks for the link.
Yeah.... it's looking like I wont do them any dis-justice by not putting them on a National. I feel better about it now. Not that I'm a purist, but I'd hate to think I had a really nice pair of tuners that somebody needed to complete a beautiful National Reso, but I put them on a CBG that somebody is kicking around in the dirt at a camp fire with. It's like stumbling across a factory Dual-Quad intake for a 1969 Chevy Camaro DZ 302 and putting it on the farm truck, because it looks cool.
Thanks everyone for you input and time. It's been a great string and I'm having fun.
Kidd
Interesting discussion! After seeing the close-ups, but before reading Chuck's reply, I was gonna suggest that the inclined stamping / decorative ridges were identical on the 2-on-a-plate short-spaced tuners and the longer Harmony tuners. Based on the stamping similarity alone, I was thinking either uke (except those tend even now to use one-per-string individual planetary friction tuners), or banjo made by Harmony / Stella.
Here's a nice link to a great Harmony database:
http://harmony.demont.net/
Unfortunately, the only pics of the banjo headstock reverses on this site show single individual string tuners at what looks like the longer spacing.
Chuck;
I was thinking they were missing parts when I first got them given to me but, after looking around I think they are all there. Initially, I was confused about them because I thought they should have the barrels you're talking about. A friend of mine thought they were for rear-mount as opposed to side mount, due to the location of the String hole. You make a very good point about the lap slide. They are long, which would give awesome spacing between the neck and strings. I actually have a request for a lap CBG. Now that you brought this up, maybe I'll use these for that.
Thanks for the great info about both my Harmony and the 2-on-a-plate tuners. I knew there were much smarter people on this subject than a green-horn like me.
Have a great day;
Kidd
Chuck Dubman said:
Kidd Filby said:
Eric;
That would be pretty cool and is along the lines of what I was thinking of doing. My next build will be a 5-string rezzo and these 2-on-a-plate machines would come in handy. Finding "matching" 3 or 6 plates might prove to be a tuff row to hoe. But, I'm into the fun of researching things like this. I actually surfed quite a few hours and really came up with nothing on the 2-plate... plenty on 3-plate versions, but nothing that matched these particular ones. I am sure they're out there.
A good friend of mine thought these actually might be for a banjo and not a guitar... which he may be right.
Thanks for commenting on my question.
Kidd
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